


For the taking

by emei



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:34:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emei/pseuds/emei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people drink, some people fight, some have screaming nightmares. Merlin has Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the taking

"Harder," Merlin tells him because Arthur's hands have gone gentle on his hips, tracing small circles with one thumb and the caring tenderness of it burns through him. He presses his eyes shut hard when Arthur hesitates, drawing out the moment – one of these when emotion seems to expand time itself and each slow touch burns from the nerve endings in his skin through the body to the brain and multiplying, feeling overflowing. He needs to escape his own skin but he can't, because Arthur is holding him down oh so carefully.

"Harder," he repeats, voice a little broken. Arthur finally tightens his grip on Merlin's hips and picks up the pace, fucking him fast and harshly. And Merlin finally loses himself in it, is all body and no mind, painful pleasure overtaking everything until he's wrung out and raw, limbs heavy and unresisting.

The first rays of sunlight creep over the rooftops as Merlin dresses and leaves. The night chill is still biting when he crosses the courtyard.

 

Some people cope by dipping a little too deep into the wine goblets. Some people hit things with swords. Others have screaming nightmares or try to stop sleeping. If someone asked him how he copes, Merlin would answer that he has Arthur. (It's not a question anyone asks.) Arthur of Camelot, all that is bright and good and noble in the land. People would smile and nod. It's true: Merlin has Arthur. It's enough. And yet.

 

Merlin knows Arthur's lovestories, possibly better than he knows them himself. Arthur is rash and possessive with a one track-mind in enchanted love, alternately teasing and awkward and so very, very noble when he's falling of his own accord.

How he acts with Merlin is always entirely different.

Merlin catalogues Arthur's smiles from the sidelines and moves on, and on.

 

Perhaps Arthur could've loved him if they'd met anew, sans history. If Arthur didn't still look at Merlin and see a man he'd thought he knew and then didn't, really. Arthur trusts Merlin with his life, with his body, with his kingdom. He never looks at Merlin like he knows him inside and out. (He used to, long ago, when he didn't.)

 

There might be some sort of masochistic pleasure in giving himself to Arthur that Merlin won't think to closely about. Tying himself up forever harder. He remembers Freya and the dreams flitting through his days with her – futures imagined far from Camelot, magical and wondrous. Now he can't entertain the thought of leaving for a single moment without feeling like something's dying in him.

 

Arthur is thrumming with fight and battle desperation when Merlin finds him in the armoury at the return from a campaign. Arthur's eyes are wild when Merlin unbuckles his armour and helps him out of his chain mail, filled with want and relief to be alive. "My chambers tonight," he says and Merlin says yes.

Arthur disappears to the throne room. Merlin sets to cleaning the blood and grime of his sword.

Merlin gives himself up entirely, body and soul for the taking if Arthur wants them. He only ever claims the body and that is how it will be. Other possibilities are lost among choices long made, washed away with autumn rains and changing seasons. Merlin is still Arthur's and only Arthur's for the taking. It's a pattern so ingrained in him by now; the outline of his days, the shape of his movements, even in the sounds of his voice. For Arthur.

It's as natural as the fact that Arthur's worries show only in the stiff set of his shoulders. That Arthur reserves the word love for noble courtly affairs. That Arthur's gaze can unravel Merlin like no one else but that Arthur never truly believes that he's seen through all the veils and secrets and shadows.

They tumble into bed drunk on adrenaline and wine. Arthur's eyes burn bright. "Make me feel alive," he says to Merlin's shoulder, voice pitched low.

Merlin makes him fuck him hard and rough until both of them are aching and falling apart in pure physical exhaustion.

He wears the bruises with satisfaction. Reminders that he is first and foremost a warm breathing body.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [for the asking (the lovestories remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/126333) by [glim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim)




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